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Sandy set to be the biggest storm EVER to hit the U.S: New York announces subway will shut as 66m people on East Coast prepare

Sunday, October 28, 2012

By Paul Martin

Up to 400,000 New Yorkers could be evacuated as city declares state of emergency, which means state will have access to federal funding
New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announces it will close for at least 24 hours due to the approaching storm – the second time in history
Sandy could be the largest storm to ever hit the United States
Could cause over $1billion worth of damage
As many as 58 people reported dead across Caribbean as super storm barrels north

Weather forecasters warned on Sunday that the approaching megastorm which could wreak havoc across 800 miles of the East Coast has the potential be the largest storm ever to hit the United States.

And with state of emergencies already in existence in several states, New York’s MTA announced that the city’s subway and bus service would close down at 7 p.m. on Sunday evening and would ‘most definitely’ be closed all of Monday with services projected to re-start ‘probably’ on Tuesday afternoon.

Forecasters said on its current projected track, Sandy is most likely to hit anywhere between Delaware and the New York/New Jersey area but said it was too early to pinpoint where the storm, which has the potential to be the biggest to hit the mainland, would make landfall.

‘We’re looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people,’ said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As Hurricane Sandy trekked north from the Caribbean — where it left nearly five dozen dead — to meet two other powerful winter storms, experts said it didn’t matter how strong the storm was when it hit land: The rare hybrid storm that follows will cause havoc over 800 miles from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

Governors from North Carolina, where steady rains were whipped by gusting winds Saturday night, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was criticized for not interrupting a vacation in Florida while a snowstorm pummeled the state in 2010, broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.